A spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers, Chris Sims, said the fear of crime was the "most worrying piece of data" to emerge from the BCS.

Mr Sims, Deputy Chief Constable of West Midlands force, told the BBC: "Despite the fact that actual crime is falling... people's fear of crime still continues to grow and that's an issue I think for police and others to try to tackle."

In the year to the end of September, gun crime rose 1% to 11,110 incidents.

People's fear of crime still continues to grow and that's an issue I think for police and others to try to tackle

Michelle Forbes, from anti-firearms group Mothers Against Guns, claimed many violent crimes still went unreported.

She said witnesses were afraid to come forward because of an insufficient level of protection offered to them.

Norman Brennan, the director of the Victims of Crime Trust, called for the recruitment of at least 50,000 extra police officers to help "reclaim the streets from the criminal untouchables".

Phone thefts

The Statistics Commission said last year that the Home Office should be stripped of the task of compiling and processing the crime figures.

The Home Secretary said crime data can "confuse" people

An independent panel of opposition party nominees and other experts will suggest new methods of calculating the data which is "transparent, understood and trusted", the Home Office said.

"I have been concerned for some time that Home Office crime statistics have been questioned and challenged," Home Secretary Charles Clarke said.

"Most people seem confused about what is happening to crime in this country."

The government's Street Crime Initiative targeted the 10 worst-hit areas and reduced offences by almost a third between 2002 and 2004-5.

But since the £81m programme ended last April, street crime has increased.

The Metropolitan Police has said the main factor behind a rise in muggings in London is the increasing number of hi-tech goods being carried by people such as the new generation of mobile phones and MP3 players.

QUARTERLY CHANGE IN RECORDED CRIME

Figures show percentage change in recorded crime, July to September 2005, compared with same quarter a year earlier, in England and Wales